When your Health Dashboard contains multiple Applications, It is possible to "group" these Applications using Categories and Tags. These Categories and Tags can then be used to "filter" your dashboard display - i.e. you can choose to only see results from Applications that have certain Tags and Categories assigned to them. Tags and Categories work best in situations where you have multiple Applications consolidated in your dashboard and you want to filter them using your own terms.
Automatic assignment
By default, CAST will automatically assign the Category "Technologies" and the technology "Tags" to your Applications. In other words (and for example), Applications containing Cobol source code will be tagged with "Cobol" in the "Technologies" Category. You can see this in action here:
You can extend this automatic tagging system as described below enabling you to filter your data more easily.
Manual assignment
If you have multiple Applications and need to filter the data they contain more easily then you can do so manually.
Categories/Sub-categories/tags
You can define Categories, Sub-categories and Tags - take the following example:
In other words, you can define:
- a simple Category > Tag relationship
- a more complex Category > Sub-Category > Tag relationship
Editing your configuration
To edit your own Categories/Sub-categories/Tags, you first need to load a special "static" page in the Health Dashboard:
WAR 1.x and 2.x http://<server>:<port>/CAST-Health/static/tags.html ZIP/JAR ≥ 2.x http://<server>:<port>/static/tags.html
Each section in the page must be used in the specified order as described below:
1) Login
You first need to login to the Health Dashboard with a user that has the ADMIN role (see User authentication):
- Enter the user name and password
- Click the Login button
- If the login is successful, the next step will be displayed.
2) Select a domain
- Assuming your Health Dashboard is using the AAD "domain" (unless you have specifically modified this it will use "AAD"), choose the default "AAD" domain in the drop down list box.
- The next step will be displayed.
3) Set categories and tags
This section governs the creation of your Categories/Sub-Categories and Tags. There are two methods you can use to create the Categories and Tags:
- Tree-view > this option is by far the easiest method and allows you to use a GUI to create the required Categories and tags
- CSV > this option is a manual editor that you can use to create bulk Categories and Tags using Excel imports
The examples below show both methods.
Example 1 - Adding a simple category and tag
If you want to create a simple Category > Tag relationship, then you can do so as follows. We will create a Country Category and two Tags (UK and France):
Tree-view
- Click Add button next to Add Category
- Select the newCategory(0) that will now be displayed:
- Enter the name for the Category (Country in this example), then click the Update button:
- Select the Country category
- Now click the Add button next to Add Tag:
- Select the newTag(0) that will now be displayed
- Enter the name for the Tag (UK in this example), then click the Update button:
- Select the Country category again
- Now click the Add button next to Add Tag
- Select the newTag(0) that will now be displayed
- Enter the name for the Tag (France in this example), then click the Update button
- You should now see the following:
- Now click the Save button:
- The Category Key and Item Key IDs will be populated automatically and the Categories will be added to section 4. Assign tags to Applications
- See Example 1 - Adding a simple category and tag below for more information about what you now need to do in 4. Assign tags to Applications
CSV
- Click the Get AppMarq Example button and then remove everything except the first line
- On the second line enter the Category name (Country in this example)
- Followed by two semi-colons (this is to leave a space for the Category Key ID)
- Followed by the word TAG
- Followed by the first Tag name (UK)
- Followed by one semi-colon to finish (an Item Key ID will be added after this semi-colon)
- On a new line enter the Category name (Country in this example)
- Followed by two semi-colons (this is to leave a space for the Category Key ID)
- Followed by the word TAG
- Followed by the first Tag name (France)
- Followed by one semi-colon to finish (an Item Key ID will be added after this semi-colon):
- Now click the Save button. The Category Key and Item Key IDs will be populated automatically and the Category will be added to section 4. Assign tags to Applications
- Now use the Tree-view tab to check that the configuration is as you require:
- See Example 1 - Adding a simple category and tag below for more information about what you now need to do in 4. Assign tags to Applications
Example 2 - Adding a category, sub category and tag
If you want to create a Category > Sub-category > Tag relationship, then you can do so as follows. We will create a Region Category, two Sub-categories (North America and Europe) and two Tags (US and France):
Tree-view
- Click Add button next to Add Category
- Select the newCategory(0) that will now be displayed:
- Enter the name for the Category (Region in this example), then click the Update button.
- Select the Country category
- Now click the Add button next to Add Category again (this will add a sub-category):
- Select the newCategory(0) that will now be displayed
- Enter the name for the sub-category (Europe in this example), then click the Update button.
- Select the Region category again
- Now click the Add button next to Add Category again (this will add another sub-category)
- Select the newCategory(0) that will now be displayed
- Enter the name for the sub-category (North America in this example), then click the Update button. You should now see this:
- Select the Europe sub-category
- Now click the Add button next to Add Tag:
- Select the newTag(0) that will now be displayed
- Enter the name for the Tag (France in this example), then click the Update button:
- Select the North America sub-category
- Now click the Add button next to Add Tag
- Select the newTag(0) that will now be displayed
- Enter the name for the Tag (US in this example), then click the Update button.
- You are now complete:
- Now click the Save button.
- The Category Key and Item Key IDs will be populated automatically and the Categories will be added to section 4. Assign tags to Applications
- See Example 2 - Adding a category, sub category and tag below for more information about what you now need to do in 4. Assign tags to Applications
CSV
Create the Category and Sub-categories
- On a new line enter the Category name (Region in this example)
- Followed by two semi-colons (this is to leave a space for the Category Key ID)
- Followed by the word CATEGORY
- Followed by the first Sub-category name (North America)
- Followed by one semi-colon to finish (an Item Key ID will be added after this semi-colon)
- On a new line enter the Category name (Region in this example)
- Followed by two semi-colons (this is to leave a space for the Category Key ID)
- Followed by the word CATEGORY
- Followed by the first Sub-category name (Europe)
- Followed by one semi-colon to finish (an Item Key ID will be added after this semi-colon).
Create the Tags
- On a new line enter the first Sub-category name that you already created (North America in this example)
- Followed by two semi-colons (this is to leave a space for the Category Key ID)
- Followed by the word TAG
- Followed by the first Tag name (US)
- Followed by one semi-colon to finish (an Item Key ID will be added after this semi-colon)
- On a new line enter the second Sub-category name that you already created (Europe in this example)
- Followed by two semi-colons (this is to leave a space for the Category key ID)
- Followed by the word TAG
- Followed by the first Tag name (Europe)
- Followed by one semi-colon to finish (an Item Key ID will be added after this semi-colon):
- Now click the Save button. The Category Key and Item Key IDs will be populated automatically and the Categories will be added to section 4. Assign tags to Applications
- Now use the Tree-view tab to check that the configuration is as you require:
- See Example 2 - Adding a category, sub category and tag below for more information about what you now need to do in 4. Assign tags to Applications
4) Assign tags to applications
This section enables you to assign your Tags to your Applications, thereby making an Application belong to a certain Category.
Example 1 - Adding a simple category and tag
- When you click the Save button in section 3), some data will be automatically displayed in this section. For example:
- The first line contains REF, NAME and DB (for internal requirements) and all the Categories you have created. In the above example, there is only one Category: Country. You do not need to alter this line manually.
- Each subsequent line refers to an Application that has been consolidated into the Health Dashboard (two Applications in the above example)
- To assign a tag to an Application, simply modify each line referring to an Application by adding the Tag separated by a comma. For example I am going to assign the Tags "UK" and "France" to each of my Applications:
- When complete, click the Save button in the bottom left hand corner of the screen:
- Your modifications are now saved and can be viewed immediately:
- Ticking a manually created tag (or tags) will only display data for Applications that have been assigned that (or those) tags. You will also be shown how many Applications out of the total number of consolidated Applications are being displayed:
- You can also use the Categories in certain drill-down pages:
Example 2 - Adding a category, sub category and tag
- When you click the Save button in section 3), some data will be automatically displayed in this section. For example:
- The first line contains REF, NAME and DB (for internal requirements) and all the Sub-categories you have created. In the above example, there are two Sub-categories: Europe and North America. You do not need to alter this line manually.
- Each subsequent line refers to an Application that has been consolidated into the Health Dashboard (two Applications in the above example)
- To assign a tag to an Application, simply modify each line referring to an Application by adding the Tag separated by a comma. For example I am going to assign the Tags "US" and "France" to each of my Applications. The France tag will be assigned to the Europe sub-category and the US tag will be assigned to the North America sub-category - this achieved using the positioning of the semi-colons:
- When complete, click the Save button in the bottom left hand corner of the screen:
- Your modifications are now saved and can be viewed immediately:
- Ticking a manually created tag (or tags) will only display data for Applications that have been assigned that (or those) tags. You will also be shown how many Applications out of the total number of consolidated Applications are being displayed:
- You can also use the Categories in certain drill-down pages:
Tips
General
- You do not have to assign a tag to an Application
- You can assign multiple tags to the same Application: separate them using commas
- A tag or category can only have ONE parent.
When you create multiple Categories, Section 4 will update accordingly when the Save button is clicked in Section 3:
In the example above, we now have two Categories: Country and Region. You can see that after the name of the Application (MEUDON) there are two semi-colons ";" - you should enter your tags in-between the appropriate semi-colon, separated by commas. For example we have assigned the Tags "UK" and "France" from the "Country" Category, as well as the Tag "Europe" from the "Region" Category.
Appmarq example
When using the CSV editing facility, it is possible to get an example Tag and Category configuration, based on the exact configuration used in CAST's Appmarq benchmarking facilty:
This button will open a popup as follows:
You can use example to help create your own tag and category configuration.
Categories and Sub-categories
- A category can be a parent of another category
- A category must define items (at least one tag or one category)
- A category has a unique name
- A category cannot define both tags and categories
- For a given category a tag has a unique name
- Parent categories MUST NOT define circular relationships
- A category cannot be empty
- If you have created a category > sub-category relationship, it is only possible to assign tags to an Application via the sub-category, not the parent category
Using Excel
You can use Excel to help define your Categories/Sub-categories/Tags. This is particularly useful if you have created a large number of Categories/Sub-categories/Tags and you have multiple Applications:
- Copy the content of the Edit tab (section 3. Set categories and tags) into the current clipboard.
- Paste the result into the first cell in an Excel sheet.
- Go to the "Data" section of Excel, select the first column, and select "Text To Columns" menu item.
- A wizard will be displayed in Excel - choose the default "Delimited" option and click Next in the wizard
- Select "Tab" and "Semicolon" as the delimiters and click Finish:
- Your data will be modified and re-organized with appropriate columns for each Category:
- You can now enter your Tags data in Excel (which is easier to use) and then copy and paste the updates back into 4. Assign tags to Applications - the correct delimiters will be used.
- Remember to separate Tags with commas (not semi-colons) in a cell.
- In addition, you can Save the Excel file so that you have a copy to re-use.
